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CADnisance Issue 21
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Welcome the 21st Edition of CADnisance.
This week we rediscover the developer tools that are hidden away on your system
giving commands such Rev Cloud and chain dimensioning. Also find out how
Inventor deals with Multithreading processors, a common questions regularly asked
when it comes to hardware selection for Inventor.
Thank you,
Kurt Jones.
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UserTools in Inventor. Kurt Jones 2.
Multithreading in Inventor . Kurt Jones 3.
Page 1

UserTools for Inventor
By Kurt Jones
There is a bunch of bonus tools that are ready for install on your system they do not require a download (Just Administrator
access to install). Tools such as Rev Clouds, Spell check, Chain Dimension & Ground and Root Component. The
UserTools after installation are available on the Add-Ins Tab in each environment in inventor 2010.
Rev Cloud in action
Inventor 2010 integrated the assembly bonus tools by default into the assembly panel and others such as Link Level of
Details have become an integral part of the standard functionality. Commands such as Rev Clouds in 2010 will still
need the UserTools installed to gain access. Inventor 2009 users can gain access to all these commands by installing
their version of UserTools.
The Assembly bonus tools in the an assembly file that have graduated from the UserTools in Inventor 2009 into the
main stream in Inventor 2010 can be found under the Assembly Tab > Productivity Panel in Inventor 2010.
To install the UserTools.msi, Browse to the following directories depending on
your version of Inventor and operating system. You will need Administration
rights to install.
For XP
Inventor 2009
C:\Program Files\ Autodesk\Inventor 2009\SDK\UserTools.msi
Inventor 2010
C:\Program Files\ Autodesk\Inventor 2010\SDK\UserTools.msi
For Vista:
Inventor 2009
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2009\SDK\UserTools.msi
Inventor 2010
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor 2010\SDK\UserTools.msi
Page 2.

Multithreading in Inventor
Autodesk Inventor 2009 and later versions support multi-core technology in some very specific areas of the product,
including:
Animations and renderings in Studio
Stress Analysis (ANSYS or FEAComputeServer processes)
ASM (Autodesk Shape Manager) kernel
Task Scheduler
In order to fully benefit from multi-core processors, you need to use multi-threaded software. Unfortunately, Inventor
is currently a single-threaded application.
On a dual-core computer, a CPU-intensive operation that uses 100% of the resources of a single-core processor will
only use a maximum of 50% of the CPU for that same operation on a dual-core computer, and only 6% of each CPU on a
16-core computer. This is shown in the following image:
Due to the lack of multi-threading, Inventor is not capable of using more than 50% of the CPU on a dual-core computer,
so there is no significant performance gain over a single CPU computer.
The only way to take advantage of a dual-core processor when using Inventor is to run multiple Inventor sessions on
your computer.
Starting in Inventor 2009, you can, however, use multiple processes
in Task Scheduler by clicking Settings menu > Multiple Processes.
The number of processes you can use is not limited to the number
of processors available. If desired, you can increase the number of
processes until 100% CPU activity is achieved on all of the processors.
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Page 3.